


Butterfly

by guanoo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gaslighting, Gore, Meta, Other, Soulless Sam Winchester, Unreliable Narrator, Voyeurism, psychological abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 23:20:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6829453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guanoo/pseuds/guanoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[<span class="u">1.01</span>| <span class="u">6.01</span>] [<b>pre-canon S6</b>]</p><p>[Before officially returning from Hell, soulless!Sam takes his time driving Dean into a mental institution]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Only problem with watching my brother was how it kept him on my mind. But I couldn't contact him directly— _not yet, not while he's happily out of the life, and I feel like my foot's caught in the trapdoor to Hell_ —so I fantasized about meeting him in some anonymous bar, only I'd grown a beard, or gotten in an accident and messed up my face, something that kept him from knowing me as Sam.

In reality it was impossible. He knew me in the dark with his ears ringing, knew me by scent and by touch.

In 2005, Jess and I flew out to New Haven for a wedding between two friends she'd had in undergrad. I got pretty drunk one night, and called Dean from a payphone. Didn't say a word, just listened to him say hello twice, then proceed to cuss me out, then pause. I couldn't even listen to his voice for a full thirty seconds before he ruined it by stammering, "Sammy wait don't hang up the—"

I hung up and didn't call again.

If Dean could recognize me by silence over the telephone, I would never deceive him.

Only I haven't been myself lately, and I don't understand why I used to be afraid of certain things. So I bought a mask that smelled like formaldehyde and stuffed it inside my jacket.

The next time I dropped in on Dean and Sid, I found Dean milling around in front of the bar, waiting. Sid promised he'd meet him, but he wanted to run there, see if he could beat his best time. He'd show up in a matter of minutes, joking loudly about _running late_ , and Dean would pretend to find puns amusing outside of the puerile ones he invented himself. Then he'd try and drown the shaking of his hands in liquor.

But for six minutes he stood alone, kicking the curb with his boots. Somehow the gesture made him look vulnerable. In that moment, I _ached_ with the desire to contact him.

It was the perfect opportunity.

So I pulled the mask over my head, adjusting the starry eyeholes and the fat, florid rubber lips.

But Dean was always the one who pointed out how my plans were such shit, and I forgot to run this one by him before pouncing.

I realized— _after I'd jumped him_ —that I couldn't speak without giving my identity away, so I stood there groping him for an awkward moment, taking a hard elbow to the ribs before deciding we couldn't do this in front of a bar.

Dean struggled when I dragged him into the back alley, snarled when I shoved him into the wall and wrapped my arms around him. I felt the icy blade of his knife sticking under my clothing but he stopped short of thrusting it into my flesh. A thin line of blood trickled down my stomach. I leaned in close and breathed his air and felt the thrill of being foreign, distinct from the man who'd betrayed Dean and desiccated his hope.

I shivered, realizing my brother had almost ( _unwittingly_ ) gutted me in a dark alley. He shivered too—I'm not sure why.

~

"Dean, look, there's no shame in seeking help," Sid explained, five shots and two beers later.

Dean nodded casually, but his knuckles were white against the neck of the bottle. 

"Lis keeps your secrets, you know she does, but I've heard things, man." His voice dropped low to preserve Dean's privacy, even though the only person listening already knew more about Dean than his neighbor could ever _hope_ to guess.

"Heard you went to war a few years back," Sid continued gravely. "I can't even imagine what that's like. So I'm here for you, Dean, but there's professionals who know more about this kind of thing than I do."

Dean nodded.

"I mean, how does that sound? I can even go with you, stay in the lobby, if—"

"Lisa and I are working it out, Sid. Thanks. Really."

"Okay man, just let me know if you—"

"Yeah, no, I will. Thanks."

I sighed into my beer.

~

Dean had traded Dad's leather for dark blue fleece. It suited him. Not the fleece itself, which only suited his status as a suburban homewrecker, but he wore the cut and color well, the richness of blue making his eyes stand out like wet foliage after rain. Dean looks good in everything though, so I feel like the switch should have troubled me more than it did—Dad's jacket always held some symbolic meaning for my brother.  But Dad's leather was bulky; it hid Dean's shape more, so of course I preferred the fleece. Took to staring at it when I sat behind him.

One evening, Sid reported that his nachos tasted funny, and hurried to the restroom. In his absence, I was overcome by a strange urge to touch Dean's new jacket. I pulled my chair close behind my brother's, straddling it so I could run my palms down his arms. I meant only to feel the midnight blue where it hugged his shoulders, but it'd been so long since we touched— _since I held his trembling form in that alley and he contemplated eviscerating me for my trouble_ —that I wound up dragging the firm caress across his back instead. He made to turn and look at me, but I pulled him closer, reaching around to still his jaw with one hand, wrapping my other arm around his chest.

"Don't turn around," I whispered. Then, in his ear, "I'm not real, Dean," raking fingers through his hair, "You're imagining me," kissing the curve of his shoulder, "because you can't handle the truth."

"Oh god, Sammy," he choked, sounding close to tears already.

"Shh, shh," I soothed, pressing a kiss to the nape of his neck, stroking a thumb down his jaw. "Everything'll be fine. I promise. Would I lie to you?"

"Yes," he groaned. But he relaxed into my touch despite himself, and never turned around. Otherwise he'dve seen that I was flesh and blood rather than some figment of his tortured dreams.

I slid my fingers under the mock collar and rubbed his neck. My touch made him gasp obscenely, but we were still in public, so he tried to disguise how his back arched off the chair, curled his fingers into denim instead of reaching behind for my hair like he used to.

When the moment had broken, he sighed and leaned back into me, murmuring "You're not real," as I pressed light kisses to his temple. I laughed and dug my fingers into the knots in his muscles until he moaned with pleasure.

Eventually, Sid returned, and I disappeared the way hunters do, like night-mirages.

~

Later when I leaned back against a chipped sink, listening to my name punch out of my brother's lips, breathy and devastated and followed by thick sobs of the same word he'd been trying not to say, I wondered if he was actually better off now.

I recall, faintly, the feeling of wings in my chest, but in retrospect I can never decide if they're blackbird or albatross.


	2. Chapter 2

I watched my brother's back as he drank. Admired the curve of his shoulders, the way his short hair looked soft without gel. His neighbor, Sid, bought him beer twice a week. The guy was nice enough, but none too bright.

And their relationship intrigued me. I mean, Dean actually had stuff in common with Sid. Both of them liked working with their hands, for one. They both told terrible jokes. And if Sid ever lived on the road? I bet he'd be as disgusting as Dean. Then again, Dean and I may have _nothing_ in common, but we still have a way of falling into each other's business at every turn. But Dean and Sid? six months into their friendship, they continued avidly discussing the weather forecast. If I had feelings I think I'd be annoyed by that.

Then again, if Dean ever revealed the full magnitude of his angst, Sid would've run screaming. But Dean was pretending to be an average suburban Joe, so he bit his tongue, nodding as the conversation turned repetitively to mundane suburban topics. I've never seen my brother so quiet. 

 _Subdued_ , that's what Dean was. The former me would've tried to meddle in their relationship— _on a fool's errand to rescue my brother_ —but I was content to watch. I've lost track of how many times I followed the odd pair to a bar, eavesdropping mere feet from my brother's back. And Sid never glanced twice at me, though I situated myself pretty shamelessly in his line of vision.

Sid was apparently oblivious to Dean's sex appeal too, which made him a rare individual (may he rest peacefully). I suppose Dean preferred befriending guys who never thought of him that way. I mean, I remember a few particularly awkward incidents, growing up. The most notorious was probably when I was in high school: Dean succeeded in seducing three law enforcement officials into releasing him from jail— _much to our dad's surprise_ —with a complementary set of handcuffs. Most incidents were less amusing though, and usually involved broken noses (theirs) and feelings of betrayal (Dean's). Eventually, Dean gave up on the notion of friendship altogether. In his mind, I guess he had plenty of friends: his car, his "duty," his right hand. Oh and, uh. Me.

But Dean's kind of a bastard sometimes, and he tested _my_ loyalty by fucking all the girls I liked and expecting me to forgive him for it. Thing is, I did. I guess that seems weird, but our dad was always MIA when I needed him, and Dean was so constant for me, like sunrise in the morning. The least I could do was tolerate his insecurities. I mean I sulked but I could never hate him, ever, and back then I didn't know how to draw lines he wouldn't cross. Of course, since I couldn't get laid unless I wanted sloppy seconds with someone who was raving about my gorgeous older brother, I started noticing _him_ instead.I guess that was his own fault.

Like I said: kind of a bastard sometimes.

I spent half my years at Stanford recovering from those traumatic desires, and do you know what he did, as soon as we met again? That's right. We're on the floor, rolling together in the dark, and as soon as the lights come on, the first fucking thing he does is hit on my girlfriend.

And you know, I hoped he came to visit me because he'd finally cracked his own thick skull, maybe seen the fucking light. Thought he'd come to tell me how sorry he was for being a cunt my whole life, or, failing that, to beg me to fuck him and simplify his universe, so he could boil hatred down to violence and affection down to sex. So he could stop feeling like nobody had ever loved him because they all wanted to screw him so badly.

I loved him way too much to put up with his shit, so I told him, "Anything you wanna say, you can say in front of Jess." And he could've, since she already knew the worst of it. She was wicked smart, and full up with something I understood back then. The word _compassion_ feels so empty now that I know better, but it carried a lot of weight at the time. Still does, with Dean.

Jess would've finished her master's in counselling that fall, if Yellow Eyes hadn't cut her life short. And, since I'd already resigned myself to Dean's noble intentions of screwing around forever, _she_ would've been the one. But it wasn't black and white like that, and I was an adult, and everything changed before I could catch my breath. Because of her death, _he_ looked at me differently, like I finally understood the thing with Mom. Like I finally understood Pain.

Only he'd taught me that years before. We lay on our backs, deep in a cornfield, between rows so tall they cut the blinding sunlight. Left us in striped shadow. Midsummer grew their ears fat and ripe and I already understood wanting my brother when he rolled over on his side, body warm against mine, and kissed me on the mouth. Didn't linger, just a quick press of soft lips that vanished into the warm air like a dream and left my heart pounding in my chest, so loud I'm sure he could hear it. Then he told me I couldn't trust anyone, that they only wanted to use me up until I was broken and drop me off on the side of an anonymous highway with twenty bucks and a wish for luck.  But he didn't mean me— _nobody ever did that shit to me_ —he meant himself. So yeah, I understood Pain, bone-deep. In my blood.

Fortunately, once Dean and I started travelling around together, people started assuming that _I_ was fucking him. Saved us a lot of trouble, now that I think of it. Though we never touched each other that way, with nobody else to come between us, until the End of Days.  And by then it was too late to convince him that I really would have been his friend. True blue.

But I don't worry about such things anymore. Friendship? Pain with a capital P? Don't make me laugh.

Had you going, though, didn't I? I'm just echoing stuff I could never put into words before I went to Hell, only it's crystalline now because I can't _feel it_. I guess love is the enemy of good sense.

Maybe I should see a doctor?

 


	3. Chapter 3

Dean and Lisa sat on the steps, listening to faint explosions in the background. Ben was playing a videogame on the television inside.

"I'm seeing things, Lis," my brother admitted quietly. "Things that aren't there."

Lisa swallowed, nodded. "All right. Okay."

"Okay."

"You wanna give some details here or am I supposed to guess?" Her voice had an edge to it that made my stomach swoop with what I've come to recognize as jealousy. She was actually good for Dean, and there I was, sitting with my back to the concrete of his steps, wondering when I stopped being good for Dean.

"Sorry. Um. Sam. In a clown mask. Jumped me in the alley. Couple months ago. Felt him again tonight," he scraped a hand over his face, "thought he was in the bar with me and Sid."

"Dean, your brother's—"

"Dead. I know."

"I was going to say he's terrified of clowns," she said slowly.

"That too."

They sat in silence for a long time before she spoke. "I don't like it. Something's off."

My stomach swooped again.

"Lis," his voice wavered. "Lisa he's gone."

She held him and I listened to him cry. She kissed him and I pressed my spine into the concrete. His muffled groan sent an unexpected thrill through me and I squirmed, waiting for them to disappear indoors.

~

I'm in the charger, key in the ignition, racing down the highway in minutes. And wiping my eyes. I don't understand why I'm wiping my eyes because I don't  _feel_ it, but I am nevertheless Having An Emotion, and it's helplessness— _the one with green eyes_.

Frustrating like Hell. Well, maybe not just like.

State lines. I don't know where I'm going yet, but the way is so familiar. Something I used to travel with Dean. My mind won't make the connection— _he never spoke when we drove this way_ —but I trust the path. I will know in time. In my bones I already know: This way will lead me to justice.

My skin prickles with anticipation.

~

I'm crouching before Jess' headstone. Kneeling in the grass over my dead girlfriend's remains. You know, this year it will be six. Six years since she died. You know I haven't really dated anyone since Jess? _(Ruby doesn't count; backstabby bitch.)_ And if you isolated the exact decade when you _should_ date, if you don't want to wind up kissing your cats goodnight, then these six years would count for more than half of mine.

If I die alone I'm blaming Dean.

You couldn't possibly understand, so don't even try. I don't mean to be rude, but it's something I don't even understand. And it's my life. And everything has been clear like water since I got back from Hell. So just don't. Can't fucking explain it. All those years. I was attracted to him, but I didn't sleep with him. Makes no goddamned sense.

I'm running my fingers over Jess' headstone. It's so roughly hewn across the top, but the face of it is smooth like glass. Lisa's in love with Dean, probably. I smile, because who wouldn't fall in love with my brother? When he gets horny he's a walking, talking wet dream. Total sensory overload.

Trust me, I know.

I blink back the white that threatens to overwhelm my vision at the mere memory. _God_ , Dean. When he was bare underneath me, naked body and soul, skin hot and pupils blown and still _insisting_ that we stop while he grabbed me and pulled me down on him and spread his legs, asking me not to with his lips but  _begging_ me to with his hands—

Christ, I'm hard.

Moron. He's fucking dumb as a rock with his stupid morality. We both were. I bit through his lip til he bled and he choked on it, kissing me with all that blood running into his mouth, smearing it across my face like a promise. I bit through his lip instead of fucking him. We got separate rooms that night. And for what? I spent the next week unable to look away from the bruise on his mouth, unable to stop thinking of how close I'd been to fucking my older brother. But we did it anyway. Later. Oh god, later, riding the high of demon blood— _shit's like the best thing you've ever tasted, electricity and fire and so much goddamned power_ —and him hating me just enough to let it happen.

Dean and Lisa, Dean and Sam. Dean loves both, but he loves one more. I wonder who.

There are flowers here, fresh, arranged in a fluted vase of clear blue glass. I wonder if her mother left them. Most likely. I finger the stem of one—a pale pink rose. It's beautiful, but I don't care for beauty. I hold it between my fingers, trying to think of a time when Dean put someone else before me. Only one comes to mind, and that's when he sold his fucking soul and went to Hell because he couldn't stand the thought of me dying.

The rose is crushed in my fingers. Did I get angry? No, it is merely a reflection. A gunpowder flash my brain has learned but my heart would not re-create, now that I have been to Hell and back myself. Now Dean and I are absolute equals, only he goes to another cemetery and cries, and I have the composure to do something about it. I cast the ruined flower aside.

I huff out a laugh, realizing it. "I can," I murmur, tracing the   _ **J**  _in her name.   _ **E**_.  I can split him and Lisa apart.   _ **S**_.  And what's stopping me?   _ **S**_.  Jessica Moore, she's who I came to see. Eight years ago, I told her I didn't want to go down this road with my brother and she agreed. Didn't judge me for thinking it, didn't condemn me or Dean. She was a goddess—after nine months of dating I confessed my darkest secret to her and she never flinched. Just agreed that I shouldn't, _ever_. And whose fault was it, really, that I couldn't protect her from Yellow Eyes? Who pulled me away on a wild goose chase when it mattered the most?

I should have known from the dreams but I didn't think so clearly back then. Wouldn't have guessed they meant anything. Wouldn't have pictured anything prophetic coming from my own mind. After all, I'd thought about dicking my brother for years and _that_ never happened. Well it did, but much later. Too late to save Jess.

She took me to bed after I told her. Said she trusted me but she had to Make Sure, so Could I please? I gave her a thousand times yes and she never questioned it again. She would have been the one. But when I try to picture that night my mind slides to a different night—I am lying in bed with Satan's ghost and he looks like _her_ and I say  _I miss you_,  _Jess_. The words hang heavy with meaning but she doesn't get it because she's  _Lucifer_ and _not_ my girlfriend. Because I could have told her that I fucked up, fucked Dean. Like, of all the people in the universe, she would have listened. Wouldn't have liked it one bit—would've kicked me out and never talked to me again—but I never scared her.

Jess told me No the first three times I asked her out, told me she never put up with crap from the guys she dated. Then again, if she hadn't died, I never would have strayed. I felt her leaving me when I fell into my brother's arms.

I'm wiping my eyes again— _what the fuck_ —but if Jess hadn't died she would have kept me good. I felt my soul when I was around her. Felt the soul of fucking humanity. So when I look at her lying in my bed five years after her death I don't miss Dean at all.

Dean was never girlfriend material, I think with a shuddering sigh when the tears don't come. Then my lips twist bitterly. He's such a fucking bastard sometimes. How the hell does so much screwed up shit cram itself into one thick skull?

From the back of my skull another memory lurches forward, sliding before my eyes wreathed in flames. I hear a voice. Not a hallucination but a memory. A man's voice, twisted and evil but sounding ever so much like my brother. Dean's voice says he gets it: he knows. Dean's voice is so easy on my ears because he isn't pretending anymore. Tells me all about the brother he loved and his story mirrors my own almost exactly, except for a few small details which he brushes over with a sweep of a giant hand that sends ravens flying into the bloodred sky.

When was _this?_ It's not very realistic, so it must've been a dream.

I suddenly feel like shredding all the flowers, but they didn't upset me. I can wait for the one who ruined my life and made perversion crawl in my belly with all the sweet sorrow of a first kiss. My brother in the cornfield with stripes of sun fanning over his too-beautiful skin. My brother was mine. Is mine. And because he's a needy cunt, he will be mine always.

So there's no point stopping here, at wedding rings. I don't see any reason we shouldn't consummate our bond.

I bite through the pad of my thumb with just enough pressure that the blood flows thick from a small, deep wound. In my blood, I cross her name out, and scrawl  **DEAN**.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm re naming this story because I'm trying to get excited about it again. It's long in my head but I need motivation to write it down. The old name—XTSD—is supposed to be PTSD with the *post* crossed out: Traumatic Stress Disorder, present-tense. 
> 
> The old title is a crock of shit though because people with ptsd are constantly reliving their trauma so even if the source gets removed it might as well be present-tense. 
> 
> So I'm calling this butterfly, first because a specific type of netting must be used to trap insects with delicate wings—which are the most beautiful—and second because tiny things can sometimes build enormous consequences, which is known as the butterfly effect. 
> 
> And butterfly is a much prettier name for an ugly story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was Written On My Phone, TM.
> 
> Until this message is removed, I haven't edited

My brother and I have visited the lower 48, Mexico once, Heaven, briefly, and we've each done time in Hell. Dean's still famous downstairs, but he doesn't like Heaven. Says it's too Stepford. Oh and, between God and Satan? He's got a bigger beef with God. 

Figures. 

In the bible, the serpent tempted Eve to taste the fruit of knowledge, whose curse unfitted man for paradise. Naturally, Heaven is a place of ignorance. But I have returned from Hell. Though the years I spent in the pit now stretch blankly through my mind, I don't have to wait for memory. I know things. I know things that double me over at the foot of my bed, edging towards an ecstasy I cannot obtain. I drag my nails through the worn coverlet, remembering, knowing my brother. Knowing he thinks about it too. Knowing he'd let me in, even though he's supposed to be taken. Knowing I can't hook him the way I used to, with soft eyes and desperate kisses we both tried so hard to pull away from.

( _This time I won't pull away, so he won't be able to._ )

Despite what I vowed, I don't want Dean at all. He's too tender, and not tender enough, and if I take him now he won't scream. He might even come willingly.

I think of all the tight, needy parts of him that I could profane, and fuck my own fist instead.

~

I return to the Campbell base. This waiting game, biding time, it's kind of my forte. I know Dean will crack and go to therapy—though it goes against every fiber of his being, he will bend because Lisa loves him, and Lisa's concerned, and Lisa wants him to try it.

Lisa's right about one thing: he really does need help. But a shrink can't give him what he needs. It wouldn't be legal. 

~

My grandfather and I strike out together—two mysterious revenants. Two merciless hunters.

He's afraid of me. I drive. I badger him with casual, slightly abrasive questions until he mumbles something about Mary.

Mary is the mother of Jesus and the mother of Dean. A demon roasted her on the ceiling of my nursery before I could understand what it's like to have a mother, but otherwise she'd have been mine, too. Do you ever wonder at Heaven and Hell, at the final prizefight we narrowly averted? Heaven and Hell are kissing cousins, Michael and Lucifer, brothers. The genius writing our scripts decides such important matters by the breadth of a hair, by the shockwave sent out from a butterfly wing.

You call him God, but he sent my grandfather Samuel to heaven—Samuel, harboring overwarm feelings for his daughter. And I was damned to Hell. 

And Dean is a righteous man, and he stopped the apocalypse. And he moaned when I caressed him.

God's rules are nothing now.

In a town full of spiderwebs I fuck grieving widows, whom your god would clothe in black and shut away from the world to weep in isolation. Before starting, I know they will leave me unsatisfied, but still I solace these women. When I leave at night they are sated, wet between their pretty, gaping lips, legs thrown wide in case I decide on a repeat performance.

I don't. None will soothe the burning in my chest because they aren't _him_ , my tormented, righteous deliverance. But he's not himself either—too privileged. I must resurrect him by reanimating his most fundamental pain.

_(Dean always cried when I left. He's going soft because he thinks I'm in a place where I can never leave him again.)_

In the meanwhile, I'm doing more good than your god can manage—I know firsthand that he won't intervene, even if Days are Ending—so stow your notions of Men Who Return From Hell. I'm not some filthy ex-con.

What I am going to do to my brother is nothing less than what he _needs_. A warrior becomes an empty husk in times of peace. 

~

I made a simple mistake which led to a massacre. This happens a lot more than anyone would like to admit in my line of work. I can admit it because I know better than to feel guilty for the slaughter of monsters.

I'm not sorry for acting decisively—I killed the monster, after all—but in retrospect, I regret the sloppiness of the hunt in Bristol.

Dean rankles like a sore in my gut as I stumble through the next four hunts, nearly getting decapitated by a bewitched ax before I wake up to his role in all this.

He kissed me first, before anyone else ever did. Helps that I mostly didn't have a mom, but he kissed me on the mouth like a lover, only without the heat. He kissed me to tell me I couldn't trust people.

Funny thing about that—it sucked me into him just the same. Worse, really: while I've had multiple lovers, as far as siblings, there's only ever been him.

And honestly? It doesn't matter whether boning me was on his mind when _he fucking kissed me_. I mean you can't just do that to your little brother and not expect consequences down the line.

I may be walking around with my nails biting into my palms but I don't have a plan until I meet a dealer named Jonathan.

~

He's not  _that_ kind of dealer. Tch, I could get my own demon blood if I wanted it.

And I don't. Now that I see the pros and cons of drinking demon blood clearly, I realize it was a weakness in my former self— _pursuing a blood-thick vendetta for the thing that dragged my brother to Hell_ —that ensnared me last time. Dean was back, but I was hotheaded—couldn't let it go. Couldn't let go of those months I'd spent trying to fuck the love I felt for him into a demon because that's all he left me with.

And so the love I felt for Dean made me a perfect vessel for Lucifer. And so the love I felt for Dean played its part in the Apocalypse.

It was love. Not malice. Not reason.

Paving the road with good intentions, right? Oh wait, sorry, you think love is a good thing.

I'm purified now. Hell burnt out the love that scalded me before, that drove me mad. Yes, the vestigial echoes of the love I felt for him still trouble me, but don't you understand? I'm free of him. I'm  _clean._

Thing is, when I was high on demon blood, I wanted him bad. Sometimes I was this close to losing control of myself and just taking what he immodestly paraded in front of me. His body, his heart, his innocent trust in his baby brother. But I know better now. I'm stronger and smarter—too smart to be his bitch this time.

You realize that I'm better now, right? Or maybe you don't. Maybe you can't understand since you've never been to Hell _._

Just wait.

~

I'm fingering the half-moons cut into my palms. _DeanDeanDean_. 

I'm not going to die because of him, so I shove the anger deeper in my mind to ferment, replacing tortured masturbation with the kind of strict, inhuman workout regimen that I could not have managed before Hell. If a target presents itself, I eliminate it with clean precision.

When I trace a series of grisly murders back to a Jonathan S., procurer of rare occult items, I don't bother with interrogation. I was planning on returning in the evening and shooting him humanely, but he plants a hex bag somewhere in my car, and I can't locate it, so I storm back in, frightening a customer with my bleeding welts, and torch him instead, which works just as well. The boils melt away, leaving my skin unblemished.

Then I have to shoot the customer. It's unfortunate, but he's a liability.

I fill my backpack with heavy stacks of cash and kick through Jonathan's various unassuming trunks, not sure what I'm looking for. Everything and nothing catches my eye. Even in-house, he carries a number of valuable trinkets, but none I have any direct need for, so I'd have to go through the trouble of selling them. And dealers like him spend half their lives making client connections.

I scowl at his charred corpse, unsettled by the growing certainty that he has _something_ I want. I try to neutralize the feeling by dumping gasoline over everything and tossing a match at a particularly ugly tapestry depicting a man tumbling from heaven, wings flaming like a comet.

On impulse, I thumb through his rolodex on my way out. The swelling heat behind me makes me sweat, and I pull at my collar, irritated. I'm riffling through the last few cards when I see a familiar name.

Bela Talbot is dead, of course, but she left her business in the hands of someone named D. Young.

~

Young is a tall, gaunt, Eurasian gentleman, with a plodding, old-world decorum. I let him talk me through half his stock before I realize he's holding out on me. Nightshade, my ass.

I interrupt his cultured monotone. "Got any dream root?"

He pauses, and his eyes flick to the pocket hidden under my lapel. I smile slowly and he bristles.

"Relax: I'm not a cop."

He clears his throat. "Hunter, then?"

I nod. "Sam Wesson."

"Haven't heard of you," he says, a shade dismissively, but the anonymity seems to ease his nerves, and then we're discussing price.

~

I practice using the dream root on my grandfather: Mary's in trouble; Mary needs saving; Mary misses her father. In a few short weeks, the scenarios become compromising, to the point when he wakes up drawn and haunted. At night, he slobbers over my dead mother.

He snaps at me when I ask him how he slept, then, at my casual innocence, he shutters his secret damnation behind purple-veined eyelids.

I laugh privately at his transparent attempts to hold his shit together.

There's another creature in his head, but I think I brought it with me somehow, because it demands authority over the wisps of black smoke which curl around my feet and fan out whenever I stroll down his technicolor sidewalks.

This strange companion is mine indeed, for he follows me into other minds, always keeping the light at my back. My shadow walks before me. 

_(Sometimes my shadow shifts restlessly, as if of its own volition, as if it's nothing more solid than a tangled confusion of quivering black wings.)_

In my cousins' dreams, I learn how to get close without being seen. I learn to watch and control from the wallpaper, or as a figure in a painting. I learn to change the weather—lightning then hail then blue skies with a snap of my fingers. Setting is harder, because my suggestions always get twisted into a place they recognize, which may or may not match what I had in mind.

In Samuel's head, it's easier. I'm getting to know him—here in the flesh/blood realm, we've dropped all semblance of formality and he tells me what he really thinks. At night, his mind acclimates to my presence, and I get lazy. 

Dean's lips drag against mine, sticky, tasting of salt and copper from his busted lip. I brush over it— _full and sinful, still bleeding sluggishly_ —with my thumb and he winces, murmuring something that gets lost in the demanding press of my mouth on his. Then I'm licking into him and he groans and shifts against me...

Now I'm fully aware that I shouldn't be groping my brother in a dusty back room of my grandfather's head, but I've got to be around somewhere in order to power Samuel's dreams and I grow tired of his cautious hunting. Little does he know, toddler-Mary's waiting on the sixth floor of a huge building of ghouls he has yet to slaughter. And, much as his antics amuse me, I've little interest in watching him fail again. Neither do my cards hold any thrall—I'm sick of the stories they tell, of Death and Temperance, The Hanged Man and The Hierophant, The Lovers and the Page of cups, The Magician, The Devil, always the same. The little paper idols catch fire in my hands.

I'm chewing my lip when my brother's image flickers before me like a phantom. He's beautiful: all delicate lines and hard angles, and I want him. I abandon my post as a gargoyle and creep into the shadows of the dream. I can smell my brother here, but my fingertips pass through the air, disturbing only dust. I draw my knife across my palm, splattering the cement flooring with a couple drops of my—our—blood, and I say his name into the darkness like an invocation. He still doesn't manifest as flesh. I struggle to concentrate my influence, though in doing so I've probably sacrificed some of my grandfather's ghouls, some rendering, perhaps the roof of this building. But then I see his face before me in the darkness.

Perhaps he costs me so much energy because my grandfather wouldn't recognize him. The toil shows in Dean's skin, gashes and scrapes and green bruises, in his limping gait, in his nakedness. But this is merely a reflection of my dear brother, and I don't bother with restraint. Something ripped out his tongue so he doesn't speak, but he does cry out: a hurt, animal sound when I push him into the wall, and when I gentle my touch he moans softly. Knees weak, I kiss him.

That's how Samuel catches me, making out with a bruised, blood-smeared Dean, and my hold on my grandfather's mind slips.

"Who in the Hell—" he growls, eyes hard on Dean. Then something flutters across Samuel's face, almost like recognition, and he shoots my brother. 

Dean's fast as ever, twisting so the bullet grazes his shoulder instead of the side of his neck, and I grab him on instinct, tumbling him to the floor by the doorframe. Then I remember the rule of dreams: the only real characters are dreamers and dreamwalkers, which means Dean can't die in here, while Samuel and I can. So I kiss my brother as I rip through the sutures crisscrossing his abdomen, drawing out his favorite pistol from the gore. I hold him thrashing, screaming in agony, as Samuel watches. Finally Dean chokes, a dribble of blood oozing between his pretty lips, and lies still, eyes wide and glassy.

I vaguely recall a time when his dead countenance bothered me, but it doesn't anymore.

Samuel regards me with horror, but he misses the gun in my blood-soaked hands. Aiming swiftly, I fire two shots, one through each of his kneecaps, and he falls.

The gun drops from my hands with a clatter and I rush to his side, grabbing him by the shoulders before he can faceplant and crack his ancient skull open. He slits his eyes at me, but pain unfocuses them and the effect is lost.

"Always knew there was something off about you, boy," he slurs, with a hint of irony. He stops to draw a few shaking breaths, but he's fairly composed, considering how he's kneeling in a puddle of his own blood. After a long moment, he gestures at the carnage behind me. "That your brother?"

I consider lying, but I can't think of any good explanation for why I was kissing someone who even strongly resembles my brother. Anyway, I'm too curious how he recognizes a man he's never met before.

"That your daughter upstairs?" I return.

He drags one knee forward, balancing himself. "It's not the same," he hisses. "I would never—Jesus, Sam, you had your tongue down his throat!"

I take his jaw in my hands, ready to snap his neck if he moves wrong. "How do you know my brother," I demand.

His brow wrinkles with what looks like genuine confusion. "Not sure," he says. "Suppose he resembles my daughter a bit."

It's my turn to narrow my eyes. "Yeah, I heard she was pretty,"  I say in my smoothest, nastiest tone. "Wonder how long that'll last once the ghouls get to her. Actually I heard ghouls make a pretty face last a lifetime at least, you know, stealing their likenesses from the newly-dead..."

"She's your _mother_ , you heartless—"

I jerk him forward so our noses almost touch. "And you were supposed to save her, not pry into my personal life." I don't mention how Dean's the closest thing I ever had to a parent, because I'm scared I'll Feel Things about that.  _Remnant fear of remnant emotions left by remnant Dean._ I need to get my head on straight.

Before I can blink, my grandfather's leveling his pistol between my eyes. "Think fast," he sneers.

And the only thing that comes to mind is idiot Dean, jumping between me and every bad thing that might be headed in my direction.

Samuel's jaw drops.

I don't need to look behind me to know that my dead brother has risen. He's naked, pale as marble, covered in gore, holding his insides in one fist. Still, he's beautiful. Dead eyes see nothing, and yet he insinuates himself between danger and his little brother: a perfect soldier.

He strikes the gun from Samuel's hand.

Samuel gives a low groan—pain or fear, it's hard to tell—and Dean grabs his jaw where I was holding it seconds earlier. I scramble to my feet behind him and he doesn't acknowledge me. Momentarily forgetting I can control my brother's actions, I take his hips in my hands, gently, as if to ground us both during one of his spells of recklessness.

"You're sick," our grandfather spits.

In a single, deft motion, Dean breaks Samuel's neck. Then he turns his empty, revenant eyes on me. The body hits the floor with a thud.

"Dean?" I try.

He opens his mouth, closes it again, tries to push past me. But I can't let him go, not now that I've realized his stunning utility. It's merely a reflection, but his dead eyes look rueful for an instant as a heavy chain winds around his neck.

~

I drop to my knees at my grandfather's side, knowing that his death would be...inconvenient, at this point. Fortunately, I've acquired exceptional control over dreams. I whisper in his ear, telling him he's alive and it's time to wake up.

Despite having died in the dream, he'll show up at breakfast the next morning: jumpy, but unmistakably among the living. 

As the dream fades into the blue light of morning, I give my brother's corpse one last, lingering kiss.


End file.
